The Chief Scoul Jalby

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 24

The Chief Scoul Jalby

(8y Lord Baden-Powell, Chief SeoufcO

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. OBSERVATION AND DEDUCTION. Scouts and Guides rely upon their ability to notice small things and to put two and two together. If you are in the country you should notice landmarks—dbjects which help you to find your way or prevent you from getting lost —such as distant hills, church towers, peculiar buildings, trees, gates, rocks, and so on. And remember, in noticing such landmarks, tliat you may want to use your knowledge of them some day for telling someone else how to find his way, so that you should notice them pretty closely, and thus be able to describe them in their proper order. You should notice and remember every by-road and footpath. Of course you should notice all passers-by very carefully—how they are dressed and what their faces are like. Notice all tracks, too; that is the marks of men, animals, birds and wheels —for from these you may read most important information. The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let details escape them.

A Scouting Exercise. Here is a, little exercise which I once carried out in observing a sign and reading the meaning of it. During a walk on a stony mountain path in Kashmir, I noticed a tree-stump about three feet high by .the path. A stone about the size of a coconut lay near it, to which were sticking some bits of bruised walnut rind, also lying on the stump. Further along the path, thirty yards to the south of the stump were lying bits of walnut shell of four walnuts. Close by was a high sloping rock, alongside the- path. The only walnut tree in sight was 130 yards north of the stump. At the foot of the stump was a cake of hardened mud, which showed the impression of a grass shoe. J[v solution of it was this. A man had"gone southward on a long journey along the path two days ago, carrying a loadT and had rested at the rock while he ate walnuts. He was a man carrying a load because when carriers want to rest they do not sit down, but rest their load against a sloping rock and loan back. Had he no load he would probably have sat down on the stump, but he preferred to go thirty yards further to where the rock was.

Women do not carry loads there, so it was a man. But he first broke the shells of his walnuts on the tree stump with the stone, having 'brought them from the tree 150 yards north. Ho was, therefore travelling south, and he was on a long journey, because he was wearing shoes and not going barefooted, as he would have been if only strolling near his home.

Three Gays ago tliere was rain; the cake of mud had been picked up while the ground was still wet, but it had not since been rained upon and was now ; dry. The walnut rind was also dry, so that days had elapsed. "Sherlock-ing." That is only an example of an everyday practice which any Scout might carry out —or any boy or girl for the matter of that. When I was the age of a Wolf Cub I used to notice the number on the collar of every policeman I met, and then remember where I had seen him. Then

I used to get a friend to come fnr kwalk to one of tte points where a police man vr„ on duty. A policeman- on S dut j is one who remains about the sam« spot lor regulating the traffic and —not like the policeman on "beat 1 'who move over a certain district it When we were in sight of the noli™ man, but a good way off, I wouldshad' my eyes and stare hard in his direS th fn "J ut° ut his num ber and the letter ot his division. Then m won d w-a ? k past him end my wmpanil would think that my marvellous eveaignt had read them correctly! Then I used to keep a little notebook and draw in it pictures of all the differ ent weather-cocks I saw. , V« T people look up and notice these On the top of the Royal Exchange in London there is a huge golden ££ ■nopper as weather-cock. Thousands of people pass it every- day, yet Tory few I ever notice it. '